Down, Up, Drenched

My feet are doing remarkably well, actually. After countless years, I have finally perfected the art of spraying, taping, and powdering my feet each morning to avoid blisters. The pads of my feet, however, desperately need to no longer touch the ground by the end of the day. Thanks for asking.

Now that we've been together a number of days, personalities of group members are starting to emerge. A once tight-lipped, serious-looking retired teacher has now entertained us immensely with her closely held dry sense of humor. One husband of a lovely soft-spoken woman starts talking about himself and won't stop. The oldest member of the group, Ed, has a serious ice cream fetish. A wife married to one fifteen years her elder makes slightly inappropriate comments about her husband that make me bite my tongue before blurting out, "TMI (too much information)."  But it's still a good group, PITA-less.

We tromped down, down, down into the bottom of the Vikos Gorge and walked alongside the river, encountering a couple rather difficult areas of loose scree and seemingly insurmountable boulders, areas where Kostas' huge grip on our arms helped pull us up. Kostas may possibly be one of the largest men in Greece At 6'7" and roughly 280 pounds, he is a looming figure. Add a deep baritone voice, and you can see why I say I wouldn't want to come across him in a dark alley. His knowledge of the area and its history is limitless, and he is gifted with a wonderful sense of humor as well, but he does need a new button-down shirt for Christmas, a larger one.

After our long descent, we enjoyed a wonderful picnic lunch by a swimming hole in the river. Only Tom and Gary dared to dip in the frigid water. A few more miles of gentle up and down awaited us after lunch, and then we started the serious climb up a long series of switchbacks on a stone path to head out of the gorge to the town of Vikos, where well-earned ice cream was in store.

the climb out of the gorge

After relaxing at a cafe while waiting for Kostas and one of our group members who wasn't feeling well, I decided to gather up trash from our tables to dump in the garbage. The cafe owner barged out from inside and berated me. Apparently, she could only keep track of what we owed by examining the wrappers, cans, and bottles on the table. Oops. 

We then packed up the van and drove down, up, and over too many switchbacks to count on our way to Mikro Papingo. 

Nikos and our pile of luggage

This morning we awakened to a radical change in the weather--heavy winds and torrential rain. It didn't seem wise to head 3,000' upwards on today's hike, so instead we walked down to another town and spent a little time in a cafe there. By the time we hiked back up the hill to Mikro Papingo, I could have poured rainwater out of my running shoes. A quiet day for catching up on email, reading a book, and taking my requisite afternoon nap. Hoping for better weather tomorrow.